During U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Australia this week, he told the Australian Parliament, “Our enduring interests in the region demand our enduring presence in this region. The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay.”

Along with making this quite bothersome promise, at least for those of us that don’t fancy perpetual war plaguing the entire planet in the name of “freedom” and “democracy” on the American taxpayer’s dime, Obama said that American military expansion is a top priority.

That’s right, Obama actually said that military expansion is a top priority, despite the fact that the U.S. debt is so massive it makes one’s head spin with incredulity.

CNN published, “Obama made it clear that the military expansion is a top priority in the wake of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,” which is interesting seeing as we are far from being in the wake of either war at this point.

Obama also made it painfully clear that, “reductions in U.S. defense spending will not – I repeat, will not – come at the expense of the Asia Pacific.”

Apparently we can count on the United States continuing to threaten China over the South China Sea dispute for the entirety of the foreseeable future, despite our less-than-stellar economy and horrific debt.

For many individuals like me, bells started ringing the second the news of increased troop presence in Australia broke.

This is because the United States has been somewhat covertly fighting back against China in the South China Seadispute, but this announcement represents a massive escalation on the part of the U.S.

In more accurate terms, it is only covert in the sense that the United States government hasn’t come right out and said, “We’re fighting China in the South China Sea dispute.”

The goading is not just on the part of the United States seeing as earlier this year a live-fire drill was conducted by the Vietnamese in the South China Sea.

However, the United States is undoubtedly choosing sides by providing arms and participating in the massive SEACAT exercise with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members which include the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

It is worth pointing out that Indonesia’s military commander voiced concern over Indonesia possibly being pulled into the South China Sea dispute when the 2,500 U.S. Marines are deployed in Australia along with the state-of-the-artfighter jets and transport planes.

”Their military fleets would very likely go back and forth through our waters, given the analysis that the planned base will have to conduct [military exercises] due to rising tension in the South China Sea,” Admiral Agus Suhartono toldThe Jakarta Post. ”We haven’t learnt clearly what this deal is but we have been studying the plan and analyzing any potential impacts on Indonesia … we have begun consulting all sources.”

In the latest meeting of the ASEAN nations at the East Asia Summit, some additional nations took part including Japan, South Korea, India, China, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Russia.

When a similar, but less tense, standoff of sorts occurred months ago, the Chinese issued similar warnings to those uttered in the recent days.

The Chinese vice foreign minister said, “I believe some countries now are playing with fire. And I hope the US won’t be burned by this fire.”

These are unarguably pointed words, and in the wake of Obama’s announcement the rhetoric has only become more heated.

Today Reuters reported that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said that, “’outside forces’ had no excuse to get involved in a complex dispute over the South China Sea, offering a veiled warning to the United States and others not to stick their noses into the sensitive issue.”

That warning is far from veiled, there is only one major military power escalating its presence and thus threatening the Chinese over the South China Sea, and that is the United States.

Keep in mind that the ASEAN countries aren’t the only players in this dispute. In September of this year, after warning the Indian state-owned oil company ONGC multiple times that joint energy explorations with Vietnam amounted to a violation of China’s sovereignty, the Indian government pledged to continue.

Back in September the Wall Street Journal pointed out that the United States has been fighting many protests on the part of China regarding their surveillance activities in the South China Sea.

The White House has said that Obama seeks to bring up the South China Sea dispute at yet another summit coming up on Saturday but China said it will not discuss the issue, opting instead to deal bilaterally with the nations which are directly involved in the dispute.

FIRST NATIONS ( LAKOTA PEOPLE ) Heartbreaking - (Google Search for video)
"to stay true to who you are. Never allow anyone make you different or think different about what it is you are created to be ...

“[The South China Sea dispute] ought to be resolved through friendly consultations and discussions by countries directly involved. Oustide forces should not, under any pretext, get involved,” Wen told the leaders of the ASEAN nations.

Wen is clearly telling the United States government that they have no part taking place in discussions regarding the dispute and that no intervention will be tolerated under any conditions.

The United States is infamous for couching wars of aggression in terms of “humanitarianism” as seen in Libya, and China is well aware that the United States would use plenty of propaganda and outright lies to justify their intervention.

This statement by Wen is essentially declaring these future possibilities null and void, something which likely will not make the goons in Washington happy.

China realizes that the United States is already getting involved via proxy with India, Vietnam and the Philippines, but the increased forces in Australia – which, within five to six years, will be a full Marine ground task force – are undoubtedly making tensions rise.

However, the increased American presence in the Pacific is far from just a full-fledged ground force presence but also some of the United States’ most sophisticated aerial weaponry.

In a call to journalists on Wednesday from Hawaii, the director of strategic planning and policy for the United States Pacific Command, Major General Michael Keltz said that the United States has already based squadrons of F-22fighter jets and C-17 transport planes.“The F-22s provide leading-edge technology for potential air-to-air combat as well as cyber and electronic warfare,” Keltz said.

This should be ringing more alarm bells for my readers out there as one of the most significant fronts between the United States and China is the nearly infinite front that is cyberwarfare.

Of course China consistently denies any of the allegations of attacks on American targets, but experts from the online security firm McAfee disagree and an image from footage shot at a Chinese military university show evidence to the contrary.

Moreover, why would the United States need massive transport planes and the most sophisticated in fighter technology if there weren’t plans to actually utilize such equipment?

Whatever the case, the massive troop increase in the region is far from reassuring to the Chinese and for good reason.

The United States has no real duty or right to intervene in the region, even under the guise of “maintaining peace and security.”
Yet the United States is already utilizing this excuse, as made clear by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes to reporters.

Rhodes used the excuse of natural disasters and claimed that there is “a demand signal from the nations of the region.”
Rhodes said, “we believe it’s not just entirely appropriate, but an important step to dealing with the challenges of the future of the Asia Pacific region.”

Clearly, Rhodes is speaking of China, but if that was a bit too ambiguous, he made it quite explicit in saying, “What we look at is how does our general force posture allow us to protect U.S. interests, protect our allies, and … secure the region broadly. China is obviously a piece of the Asia Pacific region, an emerging power.”
Yet if that wholly unambiguous message wasn’t clear enough, he added that the deal is “part of the U.S. sending a signal that we’re going to be present, that we’re going to continue to play the role of underpinning security in this part of the region. Part of that context is a rising China.”

Once again, the United States is playing the role of the “world police force” even though it not only puts American lives at risk but also sullies our international reputation while piling on debt when our economy can’t even handle the debt we have.

The timing of Obama’s visit to Australia is also quite interesting, given that he postponed trips in 2009 and 2010 due to “domestic political considerations” but not this year, when anti-Corporatism protests are breaking out throughout the nation and being met with brutal police responses.

It is also quite interesting that the coordinated crackdown on the Occupations, which involved some 18 cities, occurred right after Obama left the continental United States.
What I find quite troubling about this entire fiasco is that a major mainstream Australian publication said that the troop increase in the Asia-Pacific region is “the strongest sign yet that Australia will be at the centre of a new world order.”

I guess it is only okay to say the loaded phrase “new world order” if you’re a mainstream news outlet or a world leaderlike Barack Obama or the sorry excuse for a human being that is Henry Kissinger; otherwise you’re a nutty conspiracy theorist.

Some writers, including Mira Permatasari, a lecturer at the Department of International Relations, Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung, Indonesia, seem to be under the impression that Russia is siding with the United States in the effort to counterbalance the rising power of China.

I would disagree and point out that China-Russia relations are better than ever, as Dr. Richard Weitz, Senior Fellow and Director at the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, elucidates in writing, “The relationship between the Chinese and Russian governments is perhaps the best it has ever been. The leaders of both countries engage in numerous high-level exchanges, make many mutually supportive statements, and manifest other displays of Russian-Chinese cooperation in what both governments refer to as their developing strategic partnership.”

FIRST NATIONS ( LAKOTA PEOPLE ) Heartbreaking - (Google Search for video)
"to stay true to who you are. Never allow anyone make you different or think different about what it is you are created to be ...

Furthermore, Russia Today reported last month, “Just recently, Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev said that he was happy with the steadily-consolidated bilateral trade, scientific and technical ties with Russia’s biggest neighbor.”

We must also weigh Ahmadinejad’s call for a united front against the West during June’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting which included Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, India, Mongolia and Iran.

While Russia in China didn’t jump up in support of this call by Ahmadinejad, Russia warned of severe consequences if a military strike was carried out on Iranian soil, indicating that the Russians would take Iran’s side if such a strike were to occur.

It is also quite interesting that the U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta referred to both China and India and “others” as “threats” yesterday, citing their status as “rising powers” as reason to “try to make sure that we always have sufficient force protection out there in the Pacific to make sure they know we’re never going anywhere.”

Of course the Pentagon Captain John Kirby spokesman later backtracked and told reporters that Panetta did not see either China or India as military threats.

“Any suggestion that he was implying that either country was a military threat is just false,” Kirby said.

On its face, this statement by Kirby is nothing short of absurd and to appropriate Kirby’s own words, “is just false.”

China seems to be trying to win over the support of ASEAN nations through promises of $10 billion in loans and lines of credit which is in addition to the pledge made two years ago of $15 billion in loans.

Furthermore, China said that they will establish a $473 million fund which will help promote expanding maritime cooperation, navigational cooperation, environmental protection, and efforts to combat transnational crimes.

That’s not all, Wen also said that China seeks to increase financial cooperation with ASEAN nations by increasing local currency swaps along with encouraging “the quoting of China’s yuan and ASEAN currencies in each other’s interbank foreign exchange.”

It seems to me that with the American presence in the Asia-Pacific region on the rise with no sense of slowing down, China is going to seek increasing ties with ASEAN nations and others, be it militarily, scientific, or financial.

China just vowed to strengthen its military ties to North Korea as well. The Associated Press reports, “China’s army wanted to enhance understanding and mutual trust and strengthen practical exchanges with the North Korean military.”

They also attempt to minimize the timing, which is likely calculated by writing, “Although Li’s trip was likely planned in advance, recent remarks by President Barack Obama asserting the U.S. military’s continuing presence in Asia have riled Beijing.”

If you can honestly reconcile all of these uncannily timed events, statements and proclamations as pure coincidence, I have wonderful ocean front property in Oklahoma you might be interested in.

Any support that China can get at this point will likely be welcomed and taken advantage of in the South China Sea dispute given that the Japanese have already expressed support for the drastic increase in the American presence in the region.

“We regard this as a demonstration of the United States’ commitment in the Asia-Pacific region,” a spokesman for the Japanese foreign ministry said on Friday, according to the AAP.

Clearly this is a heated dispute which is hitting home for Indonesia’s foreign minister, Marty Natalegawa, who said the U.S.-Australian agreement would create a “vicious circle of tension and mistrust,” according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

A quite biting editorial was published in The Jakarta Post today, the title of which quite aptly sums up the brief article, “US Base? NIMBY” where NIMBY means Not In My Back Yard.The author writes, “The presence of the US base just south of Indonesia is simply too close for comfort,” adding, “For Indonesia, or for most Southeast Asian nations for that matter, the move is not exactly the kind of signal that they are looking for in terms of greater US engagement with Asia.”

I couldn’t agree more and the author’s point that, “Obama’s choice of timing in making the announcement now is bound to stir up controversy,” is quite important because it is very unlikely that the timing of this announcement was purely coincidental.

All of this leads to the conclusion that the South China Sea dispute will be one to watch closely in the coming months and years as it could indeed be a powder keg of sorts, although I sincerely hope that is not the case.

This issue is a multifaceted one that will likely prove to be quite influential in the decisions various countries make in the near future, for good or bad.

If you have information, articles, or comments to share with me, please do not hesitate to email me directly atAdmin@EndtheLie.com while I promise to read every single one of your emails personally, I cannot guarantee a reply although I do respond to as many as humanly possible.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

FIRST NATIONS ( LAKOTA PEOPLE ) Heartbreaking - (Google Search for video)
"to stay true to who you are. Never allow anyone make you different or think different about what it is you are created to be ...

Instead of overriding nations' diversities, regional integration should be established through a gradual and healthy process

How to facilitate East Asian integration is the topic shared by leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other relevant countries, who are scheduled to meet in Bali, Indonesia, for the East Asian Summit on Saturday and who have already attended a series of preceding meetings.

As a key player in the region, China has had a consistently positive approach toward regional integration. Besides, the country's reform and opening-up over the past three decades have expedited its integration into the world economy and participation in globalization and regional integration processes.

In the context of globalization, regional economic integration remains an irreversible trend and a basic path for all countries to follow to realize mutual benefit, win-win results and common development.

China and the ASEAN have set a good example in developing bilateral ties. China, on its part, has been extending full support to the integration efforts made by ASEAN member countries and trying to consolidate relations with the bloc since the establishment of bilateral dialogue partnership in 1991.

During and after the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, China offered as much assistance as possible to severely affected ASEAN member countries to help them overcome their difficulties. This helped China further in winning the trust of beneficiary nations and contributed much to their decision to establish a China-ASEAN free trade area. The full operation of the free trade area from January 1, 2010, has elevated bilateral economic and trade ties to new heights. As a result, China is now the largest trading partner of the ASEAN.
In Northeast Asia, too, China is committed to pushing for regional integration. Following a cooperative mechanism that China, Japan and the Republic of Korea started 10 years ago, the three countries have set up a regular summit meeting mechanism. And the establishment of the secretariat in the ROK in September has signaled a significant step toward regularizing the meeting.

Regional integration is a process of consultations conducted among relevant countries on an equal footing. All countries, whatever their economic levels and scales, should deal with each other under the principles of mutual respect and equal consultations. In this process, no country should force its own criteria on others, and standards and rules should be made only after negotiations among all the countries.

Despite their different development levels and national conditions, all countries have their distinctive advantages and disadvantages and thus different interests and demands. Therefore, they should try to respect the interests of others while pushing forward their own proposals. Only if these conditions are fulfilled can regional integration be advanced on a solid foundation.

East Asian countries have to face another thorny issue: How to deal with the United States in their push for regional integration. Despite being a non-Asian country and despite lying on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the US has been on high vigilance against East Asian integration that, in its eyes, could lead to its exclusion from the region's affairs. When former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama raised the concept of an East Asia Community in 2009, in which no seat would be left for the US, American Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell immediately declared that no East Asian integration was possible without Washington.

China has held an unambiguous stance toward East Asian integration and insists that it should be an open and inclusive process. This has been enumerated by the views of its leaders on many international platforms. President Hu Jintao reaffirmed this stance during his meeting with US President Barack Obama on the latter's visit to China in November 2009 and when Hu visited the US in January. At the just concluded Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, Hu reiterated China's stance during his meeting with Obama, saying China and the US both should respect the justifiable interests of the other in the Asia-Pacific region.

At a time when there are still many uncertainties in the global economy, all countries should remain cautious of their efforts to push for regional integration.

The US is now pushing for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) across the Asia-Pacific, with the multiple purpose of boosting its foreign trade, creating jobs in the US as well as making trade rules in the region. It is believed that the aim of such a move by Washington is to contain a fast-growing China and to maintain its ebbing dominance in the region. The preconditions set by the US for TPP membership, such as labor and environmental standards, are difficult for developing countries in the region to fulfill.

A majority of countries in Asia-Pacific are developing nations and there are many economic and social variations and diversities among them. Thus, in the push for any regional integration, such variations and diversities should be respected and a gradual and sound way adopted to complete the process.

The author is a researcher at the Center for China-US Relations at Tsinghua University.
(China Daily 11/19/2011 page5)

FIRST NATIONS ( LAKOTA PEOPLE ) Heartbreaking - (Google Search for video)
"to stay true to who you are. Never allow anyone make you different or think different about what it is you are created to be ...

Instead of overriding nations' diversities, regional integration should be established through a gradual and healthy process

How to facilitate East Asian integration is the topic shared by leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other relevant countries, who are scheduled to meet in Bali, Indonesia, for the East Asian Summit on Saturday and who have already attended a series of preceding meetings.

As a key player in the region, China has had a consistently positive approach toward regional integration. Besides, the country's reform and opening-up over the past three decades have expedited its integration into the world economy and participation in globalization and regional integration processes.

In the context of globalization, regional economic integration remains an irreversible trend and a basic path for all countries to follow to realize mutual benefit, win-win results and common development.

China and the ASEAN have set a good example in developing bilateral ties. China, on its part, has been extending full support to the integration efforts made by ASEAN member countries and trying to consolidate relations with the bloc since the establishment of bilateral dialogue partnership in 1991.

During and after the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, China offered as much assistance as possible to severely affected ASEAN member countries to help them overcome their difficulties. This helped China further in winning the trust of beneficiary nations and contributed much to their decision to establish a China-ASEAN free trade area. The full operation of the free trade area from January 1, 2010, has elevated bilateral economic and trade ties to new heights. As a result, China is now the largest trading partner of the ASEAN.

In Northeast Asia, too, China is committed to pushing for regional integration. Following a cooperative mechanism that China, Japan and the Republic of Korea started 10 years ago, the three countries have set up a regular summit meeting mechanism. And the establishment of the secretariat in the ROK in September has signaled a significant step toward regularizing the meeting.

Regional integration is a process of consultations conducted among relevant countries on an equal footing. All countries, whatever their economic levels and scales, should deal with each other under the principles of mutual respect and equal consultations. In this process, no country should force its own criteria on others, and standards and rules should be made only after negotiations among all the countries.

Despite their different development levels and national conditions, all countries have their distinctive advantages and disadvantages and thus different interests and demands. Therefore, they should try to respect the interests of others while pushing forward their own proposals. Only if these conditions are fulfilled can regional integration be advanced on a solid foundation.

East Asian countries have to face another thorny issue: How to deal with the United States in their push for regional integration. Despite being a non-Asian country and despite lying on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the US has been on high vigilance against East Asian integration that, in its eyes, could lead to its exclusion from the region's affairs. When former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama raised the concept of an East Asia Community in 2009, in which no seat would be left for the US, American Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell immediately declared that no East Asian integration was possible without Washington.

China has held an unambiguous stance toward East Asian integration and insists that it should be an open and inclusive process. This has been enumerated by the views of its leaders on many international platforms. President Hu Jintao reaffirmed this stance during his meeting with US President Barack Obama on the latter's visit to China in November 2009 and when Hu visited the US in January. At the just concluded Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, Hu reiterated China's stance during his meeting with Obama, saying China and the US both should respect the justifiable interests of the other in the Asia-Pacific region.

At a time when there are still many uncertainties in the global economy, all countries should remain cautious of their efforts to push for regional integration.

The US is now pushing for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) across the Asia-Pacific, with the multiple purpose of boosting its foreign trade, creating jobs in the US as well as making trade rules in the region. It is believed that the aim of such a move by Washington is to contain a fast-growing China and to maintain its ebbing dominance in the region. The preconditions set by the US for TPP membership, such as labor and environmental standards, are difficult for developing countries in the region to fulfill.

A majority of countries in Asia-Pacific are developing nations and there are many economic and social variations and diversities among them. Thus, in the push for any regional integration, such variations and diversities should be respected and a gradual and sound way adopted to complete the process.

The author is a researcher at the Center for China-US Relations at Tsinghua University.

(China Daily 11/19/2011 page5)

FIRST NATIONS ( LAKOTA PEOPLE ) Heartbreaking - (Google Search for video)
"to stay true to who you are. Never allow anyone make you different or think different about what it is you are created to be ...

desperado123 Post time: 2011-11-22 09:09
Yes, I do think US is taking on China

Let's stir the alphabet soup from Camden, New Jersey.

Imagine there's an open market in the square. People are plying their trade with stalls at specific places. At one point in time in the past of that market, there were some spots viewed as empty. Without ascertaining in advance who might have original claims to those spots, some traders started placing their wares on those spots and proceeded with their trading, claiming those spots as theirs even when obviously such a thriving marketplace would have implied those spots could only have been temporarily vacant in the first place.

Then one day, the original claimant came back. He had been distracted by events forced on him by external forces, the same forces which had also ruinously annexed the homes of those traders who are now occupying his spots.

But because he has always been a genuine trader by which is meant he just trades and does not impose preconditions on anyone else, meaning conditions which have nothing to do with buy-and-sell, he suggests to those within earshot that he would like to sit down and have a consultation with them on how to solve the problem of occupancy that has arisen.

He needn't have made the suggestion, but in the light of the fact the countries of those occupants weren't even around when he had, so to speak, 'sailed the seven seas', he felt it would be good form to have a discussion where all can put their heads together and civilly solve the problem.

On hearing the suggestion, those traders V, P, M, and so on were about to sit down with him when someone else appeared on the scene behind them. Guess who? A. The alphabet soup has just gotten interesting.

Now A is an interesting character. He doesn't present proper credentials even in the market although he claims he is the suis generis champion of all markets. When he has no trouble to his own personal interest on one side, he doesn't say he is an atlantic power. But when he thinks his leg-space is cramped a bit on the other side, he immediately says he is a pacific power, although the legspace he has in mind extends across the largest ocean in the world which leads many to wonder if he stands on stilts in the circus for a living.

And because he guzzles too much beer and has become unhealthily bloated on ill-gotten gains sold as some geopolitical philosophy, he suffers from amnesia now and then when it suits his personal interests of the day. He chooses what he wants to remember from his own history books read by millions in his own backyard.

Those books have said that except for a bad time when A kept quiet as B was plundering C and that after C had tried to save its peoples from the special import forced on it by B using I, A and C had started as true friends when J flexed its muscles on C. A had blocked J and J had retaliated by attacking A so that in retaliation to that, A had bombed the capital of J. And in retaliation to that while being true to its essential nature, J had decimated the backyard of C which it was already occupying, killing more innocents of C than was subsequently visited on J by A.

Now having had too much fugu, J wanted it all, namely the entire marketplace. So it sailed near P. And Au (probably alphabet soup making machine error there). One of A's submersibles trailed J's massive fleet. J sent one of its destroyers back to shoo it away, then returned to catch up with its fleet. Leaving behind tell-tail signs from its water wave of the direction the fleet was heading. A immediately sent its dive-bombers. All were blown out of the skies by J. Then J made a calculated mistake and was caught unawares. It was busy changing bombs to torpedos when A's second wave of divebombers came. Three of J's biggest flat-tops were 'scratched' (meaning sent to the ocean floor). In retaliation (a common word here), J wounded one of A's flattop, but at the expense of losing half of J's naval aviators, those who had caught A unawares (karma?) just before one christmas. Limping back home, one of J's big ships was chugging away in the water when A decided to deliver the coup de grace. It unleashed all its sixty six dive bombers on it. All the bombs missed completely. Just as B had suffered from lack of vitamin c, A had suffered from lack of vitamin e. Which explains why A had to drop just two bombs in the end on J. They had to be special otherwise they might have also missed.

And that is why, today, A is goading C in the South China Sea. Because after occupying J in the same manner it has occupied P in the same tradition that N had occupied Id (another machine error), A needs to create a ring around C using J, K and C's tw - because A thinks it can create another maritime empire. Like B.

Meanwhile, K and V are reminded of A's role in the devastation of their gardens. But while K is split, strangely with both split k's still amicably trading with C, V has sold its spirit to both A and R who between themselves are still matter-antimatter. How will V explain to the spirits of its peoples who have been reduced to ashes, which would have been more but for easily forgotten past support from C, that it has now sold its soul for just some greenbacks, namely paper printed using timber from Ca?

So, back to our market. A is standing behind all except C. That shows it is stirring the alphabet soup. If the consultation mooted by C is to find peaceful solution, then A's role behind the others is to stir mischief and mayhem to create more trouble so as to make the others depend more on A.

For all the leaders in those non-C's, especially those who have been given the taste of Sees chocolates from San Francisco or rode on the merrygoround in Los Angeles or pulled the one-armed bandit in Las Vegas or taken a quiet course at Annapolis, they must be aware that when a consultation is about to take place, the interposition of an external force remote from the consultation will change the level and intensity of the consultation and encourage those who would have been amicable to a common solution to embark on adventurist posturing to try and claim more which in turn will result in no peaceable solution leading to the very result C wants to avoid in the first place with its suggestion which A patently wants to block for its own personal empire-building interest.

And because world events have become nonlinear and asymmetric, the Au's which are in surplus prosperity today may well want to ask if their B-originated A friends can devise such schemes on others, couldn't one day they may devise one on them the Au's?

C has never. To any alphabet in any soup on any table. In fact, C has lifted up the entire mining industry of Au from Bp to Bhp until Au has to talk about a mining tax on its own people.

If there is a dispute in the area, the trading routes will be choked, Id will destabilize, Au will get a taste of A's downturn, C will turn inwards but A will not be able to fill the vacuum because it cannot make things cheap enough for its own people to afford, nor sell them cheap enough to the rest of the world. Because, except C, all have been sundered by A's greed and short-sightedness.

Ask B, S, F, It and Gr who should now look to a future where it will be 'G-2' (A+C, minus B).

Starting a war in a faraway pond so as to prime one's own economy is not the enlightened cultured way to usher a better 21st century for the whole world. In the first place, A will only magnify its own debt which no longer the printing of money bills can ameliorate. The mistake in A's economic thinking is that it still presumes it can keynesize a problem away but what keynesians do is to make the real problem of debt bigger in the temporary solution of the problem at hand. A should not make the second mistake of increasing tensions which would have been solved without its interference.

Maybe that's why i would prefer a simple broth to an alphabet soup anyday.